COURT: Man admits to helping friend flee after Escondido killing

A friend of a man who is accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend and her fetus pleaded guilty Thursday to helping the friend flee to Mexico after the shooting, a prosecutor said Friday.

Jesse Juan Lopez, 22, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact in the April death of Viridiana Rodriguez, 18, Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe said.

Lopez, of Poway, agreed to a deal that will require him to be sentenced to 16 months in prison, Watanabe said. In exchange for the plea, the prosecutor dropped gang allegations against Lopez.

Watanabe said Lopez drove friend Ruben Cepeda to the U.S.-Mexico border, where witnesses reported seeing a man get out of Lopez's truck, run to the border and climb a fence into Mexico about an hour or so after Rodriguez was shot in Cepeda's Escondido apartment.

Cepeda, 21 and a U.S. citizen, was caught in Mexico in early June and brought back to the United States. He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of
two counts
of second-degree murder;
he has pleaded not guilty
.

A 9mm bullet tore through Rodriguez's stomach, hit her aorta and struck her spine, but did not strike the fetus, according to Watanabe. The fetus died, however, when its mother died an hour after the shooting, which happened about 7:30 p.m. on April 7. The victim's sister was in another room and
heard the gunshot
.